Guard Returns Last Haitians From Guantanamo Naval Base

The Coast Guard on Wednesday repatriated the last of the Haitians housed at a refugee camp in Cuba and rejected for political asylum in the United States.

The 83 refugees delivered to Port-au-Prince, Haiti`s capital, were the last to be interviewed by U.S. immigration officers under a decade-old Reagan administration policy.

President Bush changed that policy on May 24 by authorizing the Coast Guard to escort the boat people back to their homeland without screening them for plausible asylum claims.

The cutter Bear`s repatriation of Haitians on Wednesday marked the beginning of the end of the McCalla Humanitarian Center, a tent city built on an airstrip at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

About 1,500 Haitians approved to pursue asylum claims remained at Guantanamo, most of them awaiting transfer to the United States for further hearings. About 200 Haitians who tested positive for the HIV virus that causes AIDS will have their final asylum hearings at the base.

The tent city, swollen beyond capacity to 12,500 Haitians in early May, was erected to house a flood of people fleeing their country after the military ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sept. 30.

Housing and caring for the Haitians at the camp had cost more than $30 million as of May, according to Defense Department figures.

The Coast Guard`s cost for intercepting Haitians at sea and repatriating them has surpassed $2.5 million, according to May figures.

Coast Guard spokesmen called the effort ``the largest lifesaving operation in the Coast Guard`s 201-year history.`` Cutters picked up 36,722 Haitians from 491 vessels between the coup and June 5, when the refugee flood ceased.

``Despite often dangerous sea and wind conditions, all of the Haitians were rescued from their craft and brought aboard the cutters without a single serious injury or loss of life,`` the Coast Guard said.

Of those Haitians picked up, immigration officers have determined 10,736 to have credible asylum claims, Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman Duke Austin said.